


PROSELYTIZED

by Woodswolf



Series: Nindroid!Jay [1]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Angst and Feels, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Blood and Torture, Brainwashing, Canon Continuation, Emotional Manipulation, Evil!Jay, Eye Gouging, Eye Trauma, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Eye Trauma, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Mind Rape, Nindroid!Jay, Partial Mind Control, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodswolf/pseuds/Woodswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jay is kidnapped and mind controlled by the Overlord, the remaining ninja must do all they can to save him, or lose their friend forever.</p><hr/><p>The official continuation of the comic PROSELYTIZED by Prpldragon. Characters belong to LEGO.<br/><a href="http://nindroid-jay.thecomicseries.com/">Read the comic!</a> | <a href="http://nindroid-jay.tumblr.com/">Official Tumblr</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	PROSELYTIZED

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [PROSELYTIZED](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/163112) by Prpldragon. 



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> * * *
> 
>  **PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD: IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANYTHING LISTED IN THE FIRST FIFTEEN TAGS, SKIP THE FIRST SCENE.** I went practically all-out on that, and it's the _sole reason_ this fic has an M rating. Most of the rest of the fic is going to be somewhere in the T range, probably, but I'm not marking this T because of this first scene.
> 
> If you want to skip it or get uncomfortable at any point, ctrl+F "breakfast" to get to the second scene.

He doesn’t know where he is or how he came here, but as Jay hazily comes back to himself, he’s infinitely aware of one thing:

He has the _worst headache._

He groans and attempts to press his palms against his forehead, but suddenly realizes that he can’t move his hands. The room is too dark to see exactly what’s holding him, but judging from his awful headache, it can’t be anything good.

Jay tries piecing together everything he can remember before he ended up here – he was ambushed, he can clearly remember that. He was alone outside the Junkyard; he needed some time alone after –

 **_We don’t even need you!_ ** _Cole said, of course **he** said it, and of course it’s true, it’s all too true, and Jay just needs to run away…_

He can’t deny that it hurts, but he still tries to tell himself that he’s only tearing up because the metal is digging into his hands.

Lights – cold, glaring fluorescents – suddenly flash on. He’s left temporarily blind in the sudden burst of brightness. It exacerbates his headache, and he closes his eyes weakly to try to shut it out.

“Well, well, _well,_ ” a voice says from somewhere in front of him. “ _What_ do we have here?”

A cold, scaly hand grabs his face and digs in with blunt claws. Jay’s eyes fly wide open with shock, and he finds himself staring into the eyes of someone he instantly recognizes.

“Pythor,” Jay growls.

Pythor removes his hood and sneers. His scales are bleached and appear sickly. “I was hoping that reveal would be a bit more dramatic. A shame, really.”

He slithers further away before Jay can decide whether or not to spit in his face. Instead, Jay stands as straight as he can and twists his face into an expression that he hopes looks threatening.

“Let me go, _right now,_ and I’ll go easy on you,” he says, keeping his voice as low and level as he can.

Pythor stops and turns halfway around to look at Jay. Jay meets his gaze and holds the eye contact. They stare at each other for a long moment before Pythor grins, blinks, and starts _laughing._

“ _Let me go!_ ” Jay screams, pushing himself as far away from the wall – and as close to Pythor – as his restraints will allow.

“No. First, you’re going to help me. _Now,_ ” Pythor pauses, turning completely around to face Jay again, “Shoot lightning into the gauntlets on your hands to power the Nindroids!”

“What? _No way!_ ” Jay shouts. Pythor has it coming now, because someone else tried to tell him that before, and he’s _done._ “I’m not some stupid _battery_ and I’d never help you!”

Pythor stops moving. He narrows his eyes dangerously. “Very well,” he says, with venom in his voice. “If you won’t help us, we’ll just have to dispose of you.”

He snaps his fingers, and a Nindroid stationed in the back of the room – one that Jay hadn’t noticed before – moves around Pythor and takes a position a few feet directly in front of Jay.

It draws its blaster. His heart stops.

“It’s a shame you didn’t take my offer,” Pythor hisses.

Jay barely hears. He only has eyes for the barrel of the gun less than a foot away from his nose.

“In three.”

Jay closes his eyes.

“Two.”

His palms fill with static.

“One.”

A sound like a laser charging –

“ _Fi–_ ”

“ _WAIT! **DON’T KILL HIM!**_ ”

Silence.

…

Pythor’s voice, cocky, shameless. “Why not?”

An artificial growl, sounding almost like… the Overlord? “We have no need for him. He’d just be a nuisance to us.”

Jay dares to crack open his eyes. The gun is gone. The adrenaline bleeds out of his system quickly, replaced with cool relief.

Cyrus is sitting in his wheelchair near a doorway off to the side, the windowless metal doors thrown wide. The Overlord is staring down at him from a large monitor far above.

“W-well,” Cyrus says, struggling for words, “You could… um… you could just…”

“What?” the Overlord barks. “Spit it out and quit wasting our time!”

“Okay, okay, it’s just…” Cyrus flounders, looking at the floor. “M-maybe instead of killing him, you could, uh… brainwash… him?”

Jay’s eyes widen. “What?”

The Overlord’s eyes narrow, considering the possibility, but Pythor speaks first.

“Preposterous!” he says. “How could we _ever –_ ”

“SILENCE!” the Overlord demands. “Cyrus, I accept your suggestion. Do whatever is necessary for me to control him from this digital prison.”

“He’s _lying!_ Don’t you see that?” Pythor screeches, turning completely from Cyrus to the Overlord. “He’s just trying to buy time for the Ninja to come! It’s _impossible!_ ”

“A-actually,” Cyrus says, sitting up a little straighter, “There… there _is_ a chip that might work. It kept malfunctioning, but I… I figured out what was wrong with it. About a week ago. T-there’s… already a prototype, I was doing some testing…”

“What chip, Cyrus?” the Overlord purrs, voice low and deadly.

“I-it’s the AIE-ES chip,” Cyrus explains, his voice growing ever-quieter as he continues. “Artificial intelligence enhancer-emotion suppressor. It was supposed to go in the next model of P.I.X.A.L., but… well, it doesn’t really _work_ like that anymore –”

“ _Yes!_ ” the Overlord says triumphantly. “Retrieve this chip and bring it back here. But if you fail to find it, you _both_ will die.”

“R-right,” Cyrus says. “I’ll find it… I’ll find it.”

“Cyrus, _why?_ ”

Jay is standing frozen in place, begging for an answer, but as Cyrus turns to retreat back through the door, he gives Jay a look of apologetic exasperation and mouths two words:

_I’m sorry._

Cyrus wheels out of the room as fast as he can. Pythor begins to follow him, but stops and speaks without glancing back at Jay. “Well, it seems like everything is in order,” Pythor says. “I’ll check in later. Ta-ta.”

He slams the door, and sound resounds through the room. The lights turn off a moment later, and then the room is left in darkness.

And then there’s noise.

The wall he’s attached to slips down, and suddenly it’s a table rolling into the center of the room. A focused spotlight flashes on, brighter than the lights from before, and everything around is so dark, he can’t see anything but silhouettes moving down…

Cold metal claws wrap around his arms and drag them up behind his head. He can’t see exactly what they are, it’s too bright, but they’re strong. He can tell he’ll have bruises on his arms where they grip him; they’re holding him tight, but he doesn’t understand why until –

Another silhouette drifts down: several three-pointed metal claws and something that looks suspiciously like a scalpel…

He starts to struggle against the grip now, but it’s too late; the claws are coming down, they’re already here, and now _it_ is doing exactly what he’s afraid it would do and it’s coming closer and _now –_

Jay screams.

But no one hears.

* * *

“Too bad we didn’t have time to get a decent breakfast,” Cole says, grasping one of the ceiling straps in the modified Techno Copter with one hand while holding a granola bar in the other. “Hey, Zane, can we stop for something at McNinja’s?”

“No. They would not be open, given the Blackout,” Zane responds without looking away from the silhouette of Ninjago City on the horizon. Cole snorts. Classic Zane… “Besides, we do not have time to waste on something like that while Jay is in danger.”

 _That_ comment immediately kills the weird mood Cole is getting into. He takes a bite out of his granola bar. It tastes like sawdust. (He quietly thinks that it probably _is_ sawdust, considering how eccentric Jay’s parents are.)

Kai diverts the conversation before Cole has actually respond to Zane’s comment. “How long ‘til we get to the city anyways?”

“I estimate that it will take approximately ten minutes at our current velocity,” Zane answers from the front again.

Kai turns around to address the rest of the group. “So what’s the plan for when we _do_ arrive?”

“Simple,” Cole says. “Break into Borg Tower, save Jay, get out of there ASAP.”

“Well, you’re not wrong, but it probably won’t be that easy,” Nya says. “We don’t even know where Jay is in Borg Tower, if he’s even still _there!_ ”

“Perhaps I could connect to the Tower’s infrastructure and track the electronic signatures in order to guide you through?” Pixal offers. She’s been standing silently next to Cole for almost the entire ride.

“That would be a huge help,” Nya says. “Thanks!”

Pixal smiles. “It’s a pleasure to be of service.”

“What about Lloyd, though?” Kai asks. “He doesn’t know that Jay’s missing yet.”

An uneasy quiet falls over the group. Except for the purr of the Techno Copter’s engine, the small cargo hold becomes almost completely silent.

“I think…” Nya begins, softly breaking the silence, “I think we should keep this between us for now. Lloyd’s got enough on his plate, what with being number one on the Overlord’s most wanted list.”

Kai looks conflicted for a moment. “I guess.”

“I think we should tell him,” Cole says. “He’s part of the team, he deserves to know.”

“Does he deserve the extra stress, though?” Kai asks. “He’s still a kid, and he’s got more than enough to deal with already.”

“Maybe we can just alert Garmadon?” Nya suggests. “At least he should know what’s happened.”

Cole grins. “Good idea, but how do we make sure only he knows? It’s not like we can holo-message him privately.”

Zane speaks up again from the front. “Perhaps we can just preface it by saying it’s a message for Garmadon?”

“Hm,” Cole says, staring out past Zane through what he can see of the front window. Ninjago City’s silhouette looms heavy and dark on the horizon, like a creature waiting to pounce.

He still can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go horribly wrong.

“I guess that’ll work,” he finally says. “Let’s hurry and record it before we arrive.”

* * *

It’s almost unsettling how fast Hiroshi’s Labyrinth changes from spacious forest to densely-packed trees and nigh-unwalkable ground. One minute, they’re walking freely beneath the open sky, and the next, they’re pushing aside plants twice as tall as he is to keep struggling forward. Garmadon knows that it’s going to be a _long_ day.

“Dad, how long do we have to keep walking?” Lloyd asks. “I’m tired.”

“You just woke up, son,” Garmadon replies, leading the way deeper and deeper into the jungle.

“But I barely slept,” Lloyd argues. “It’s not like I had my bed or anything.”

Garmadon sighs. “I know, but sometimes you can’t have everything you want in life.”

“I know…” Lloyd says. “But where are we even going? I doubt the Overlord could find us this deep in the Labyrinth.”

“Don’t be so sure, son,” Garmadon warns. He stops for a moment, both to let Lloyd catch up and to listen for anything that sounds out-of-place. He doesn’t hear anything _now,_ but… “The Overlord is relentless, and will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. We just have to keep moving. It’d be risky to stay in the same place for too long.”

“Okay… but could we at least get some McNinja’s?” Lloyd says, grinning.

Garmadon gives Lloyd a blank look. “Does… does it _look_ like there’s a McNinja’s anywhere near here?”

Lloyd laughs. “It was just a joke, Dad.”

A familiar caw calls down from above, and Garmadon looks up to see the falcon swoop down and land on his shoulder. It immediately begins projecting another message from Nya:

“Hey guys! Hope you’re holding up. We’ve got a message just for Garmadon.”

The projection shuts off. Garmadon looks at the falcon expectantly, which nods back at him until Garmadon guesses what it means.

“I guess it’s a private one,” Garmadon says, looking at Lloyd. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Lloyd mumbles, leaning back against a nearby tree.

Garmadon trudges off the narrow path they’d been following into denser foliage. After a few minutes of walking, he finds a small clearing, and the falcon begins playing the rest of the message.

“Now that you’re away from Lloyd, it’s safe to tell you what’s happened,” the grainy picture of Nya says. Garmadon’s not sure what to make of it – she almost looks nervous. “Long story short, Jay’s been kidnapped. We’re on our way to save him right now, which shouldn’t take too long, but we thought it would be good to inform you.”

She frowns and chews on her lip. “Please don’t tell Lloyd, though. The kid’s got enough to worry about. If he asks, tell him we’re on our way to defeat the Overlord from the computer, and the reason we wanted to keep it private was so he wouldn’t worry about it, or something like that.”

Someone in the background says something that Garmadon can’t make out. Nya looks off to the side, and then back at Garmadon. “Oh, we’re here,” she says, forcing a smile. “We’ll let you know how things go. Over and out!”

The projection cuts off again, this time signaling the end of the message. Garmadon is concerned. He looks at the falcon sitting on his shoulder. “Goodness, first Wu, and now Jay’s gone?” Garmadon asks, shaking his head. “What else could go wrong…?”

A voice comes from behind him. “Jay’s been _kidnapped?_ ”

Garmadon spins on one foot to see Lloyd standing on the edge of the clearing. “Lloyd! You weren’t supposed to hear th–”

“Hear what?” Lloyd asks. He’s glaring at Garmadon – it’s the angriest he’s ever seen his son look. “That one of my _friends_ has been captured? That we’re just going to stay out here and not even _help?_ ”

“We’re trying to keep you safe, Lloyd!”

“ _Safe?_ I’m _never_ going to be safe!” Lloyd shouts. “There are _always_ going to be people chasing after me! I’d rather _die_ than not help my _friends!_ ”

“Lloyd –”

He summons a ball of greenish light, and Garmadon can’t help but flinch; he expects to be blown back any second, but the hit never comes. Instead, Lloyd creates a green motorbike, revs the engine, and roars off into the dense foliage.

The clearing is suddenly very still, and Garmadon stops and listens carefully. The sound of Lloyd’s motorbike fades slowly, but another sound replaces it: a quiet _whoomph_ noise that slowly grows louder, sounding almost like –

Something _gigantic_ passes over the trees. Garmadon can see little more than that it’s black and purple before he takes shelter inside a bush. Moments later, whirring noises pass overhead within the trees, and Garmadon can barely identify them through the leaves: Nindroids with _wings_.

_They’d been ambushed._

“Oh no.”

* * *

Cyrus isn’t sure what’s worse: the screaming, or the fact that the screaming had _stopped._

He’d retreated to his lab on the top floor for several hours after the disaster that had occured in the lower part of the sub-basement early that morning – he’d never remembered the corridor leading to the elevator as being that long, or his chair moving at a speed that was so agonizingly slow, so that he had to hear the screaming. The screaming was _terrible…_

He’d still been able to hear it echoing inside the elevator even long after it had left the floor…

Cyrus had found the prototype chip and sent it down to the basement without even wondering if it would work – it was already too late to reconsider by that point. He’d avoided the floor for the rest of the day – he’d mostly just sat still in his lab, staring out the window, wondering about what he’d _done_ – but now, he needs to know.

It isn’t hard to locate Pythor on one of the security cameras. He’s in an observation room in the sub-basement, staring through the one-way window that dominates most of one of the longer walls. Something about that seems… _wrong,_ repulsive on a level that Cyrus can’t quite explain. Cyrus just _knows_ that whatever the feeling means, it can’t be anything good.

And he’s right.

He finally finds Pythor in that observation room – specifically, one overlooking the same chamber of the encounter in the morning. Something is very wrong; Cyrus designed the building himself, and he _knows_ the walls in these observation rooms aren’t soundproof. But it’s completely silent, except for tiny mechanical whirrs coming from the chamber below.

Pythor doesn’t even turn away from the window when Cyrus opens the door and steers his chair inside. One of the Serpentine’s eyes flicks to look at him, but it quickly returns to gazing at whatever is happening on the lower floor. Cyrus approaches him but shies away from the window at the last moment; he really doesn’t want to see what –

“The worst of it is over,” Pythor sneers. “They’re finishing up the wiring – I believe they’re connecting the eyepiece to the remains of his optic nerve at the moment. Really, only the first few minutes were that entertaining. Once he stopped struggling, things settled down quite a bit.”

The alarm bells start sounding in Cyrus’s head again, and he loses his train of thought. It reforms on one specific idea, one that he can’t quite shake. He really, really doesn’t want to ask this question now – he should leave, he should find something else to do…

He mentions the other thing instead.

“The Ninja will be arriving in a few minutes,” he says, attempting to put some fire back into his voice. “You and the Overlord should just let him go and surrender. You’ve done enough damage already.”

Pythor just grins instead. “You’ll find that we don’t wish to give up so easily,” he hisses. “We’re going to distract them until everything is ready, and _you’re_ going to stay out of the way. We’ll have more than enough power in a few days – I would suggest that if you value your freedom, Cyrus, that you would avoid similar subjects in the future. As this little experiment will confirm or deny, we have more… permanent ways of dealing with you. Surely it can’t be that hard to manage _two_ mind-controlled idiots instead of just one.”

Cyrus does not want to be here anymore. He almost turns around and tears out of the room right then and there, but something stops him. The tiny question is nagging at the back of his mind: the question that he really, really does not want to know the answer to.

But if he never asks, he’ll never know. And if he never knows, he’ll never be able to live with himself.

“So… about earlier…” he begins nervously. “Were… were you…”

Pythor grins again, wider this time, but doesn’t urge him to continue. Cyrus swallows the growing lump in his throat and finishes the question.

“…Were you really going to kill him?”

Pythor stares at him for a minute before answering. “Of _course_ not,” he says, smiling softly. It’s not comforting in the slightest. The sing-song tone in his voice, as if he’s explaining everything to a small child, doesn’t help much, either. “No, that was all the manipulation game. If he refused to cooperate after that – and he really was so close already – the Nindroid would have intentionally missed, but done some damage in the process. Singed his hair, clipped his ear – anything would do. Threats become more real when pain is involved; you know this. It wouldn’t have taken him very long to submit.”

Cyrus realizes two things in very quick succession: one, that he’s been holding his breath; and two, that Pythor has just told him an answer possibly even _worse_ than anything he had expected to hear.

“That being said, your idea was much better. Why have an unlimited power source _or_ a mindless pawn when you can have _both?_ Bravo on your part,” Pythor starts again, casting a glance through the window before turning back to Cyrus. “You said we have some company to prepare for, though? _I’m_ going to go prepare some things for them. Stay out of trouble – you remember what I said.”

Pythor slithers out of the room without another word, but Cyrus doesn’t watch him leave. He sits in his chair, dumbfounded, and stares off into space, trying to comprehend what he’d _done._

A sudden noise from the chamber startles him, and he looks up, not knowing what he expects to see. It’s a metal claw, retracting into the ceiling; three sharp, needle-pointed fingers, slick with red.

Cyrus can instantly tell that this is the worst day of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome to Suffering! :D
> 
> For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Woodswolf. I've been writing Ninjago fanfiction for several years (I only recently moved all of the stuff I want to keep to AO3 - most of my stuff is still on FFN). (If you liked this, read my other fics - they'll be worth your time, I promise, and there are a few oneshots that focus around variations of this AU.)
> 
> I've been involved with the Nindroid!Jay AU since almost the beginning. I played a part in helping Prpl shape the plot into what it is today, including fleshing out the middle and the finale (though we're not anywhere _near_ there yet... hehehe...). I was also the one who programmed the Ren'Py game that's currently the last part of the comic. That absolutely _terrible_ choice of an intro scene for this fic was made possible by: the incredibly awkward spot the comic cut off in _because_ of said game. But you know what? That's almost _better,_ because then the scene that everybody's been waiting for gets to have slightly less censoring. :)
> 
> The chapter title ~~and stuff in binary~~ comes from the song **["The Device Has Been Modified"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQUaEF2bJZ0) by Victims of Science.** It's one of two or three songs that completely define the Nindroid Jay AU for me; it felt right to start us off with it. (The other one's going to remain a secret for now, as I'll probably end up using it at some point.)
> 
> Just a friendly FYI: There's going to be a _little_ bit of S3 canon rehashing for a little while at first, mostly because of how this AU diverges from canon. I've tried to skip over what I can (for instance, the instant reveal of Pythor as Arcturus in the first scene), but there's still going to be a decent amount of stuff that's lifted almost directly from S3. Due to the nature of this AU, it's practically unavoidable; thankfully, it shouldn't last for more than the next two or three chapters. It's been long enough since S3 that everybody hardly remembers what happened anyway, probably - can you believe it's been almost two years? XD
> 
> I'm not going to promise a consistent update schedule on this - I've made that mistake before and it's only ever come back to bite me. Hopefully you won't have to wait more than a few months, but with college, I can't promise anything. :P
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **Fanart related to this chapter:**  
> [This](http://birchwoodswolf.tumblr.com/post/139462599759) by my good friend [Neon](http://neonjays.tumblr.com/post/139462238943) **(blood/gore/body horror)**


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